Advantageous Accidents

                   "Advantageous Accidents"

     Our lives are a series of accidents. Each moment we live “presents” us with encounters and choices, and we may consciously or, more often, unconsciously choose between options that are randomly revealed. Each crossroad or encounter, however seemingly insignificant, may possess potential for an alteration that might affect our voyage.  Of course the affect inspires only if it is recognized and then embraced. If overlooked they disolve into our unconsciousness. We sail through a narrow sea of space and time, our voyage depending on random destiny,,, our ability to steer, and our willingness to go ashore and explore the inlets. La Vida Es la Ruleta but our decisions count more than we are willing to admit. Decisions, large and small, determine how it all passes and,,,, if we are paying attention at the moment the wind turns or the fog lifts,, and we wax reflective we may just have an opportunity to experience an "Advantageous Accident".

     When these momentous accidents occur they may caress our senses and perhaps deliver unto us a chorus of angels. We are sometimes brushed by the essences of life, and given the opportunity to comb them so that they shimmer. I was set in motion by an empty seat on an old green school bus.

     My father died in september 1997. He was the parent upon which depended my sanity. His protection was more exemplary than participatory, but that was important to my mental health,, just to know that one of my parents was secure and at the core a decent person. My mother could have made us all even more debiltated images of herself but it was my father's example, as the simpler one, with feet on the ground not a head mired in the clouds of materialism that protected us from a free ticket to the feeb farm. We are all like cocktails in a way, some with nothing but bitters and others containing more delicious subtleties in their flavor. My father lacked intervention but he balanced the scale with other achievements. His passing affected me deeply. 

     After his death depression set in like a wet cold. Day by day I grew distant from my secure routines and ventured beyond the point of an easy recovery. This kind of depression accretes as it settles. It sneaks into life and then, after a bit one finds their orbit disturbed. Simple actions cannot be realized. You sense yourself sinking. Stasis seems out of reach. Have you ever tried to tie a knot in a fishing line when the temperature is below freezing? It is a simple task made nearly impossible with the introduction of cold. Fingers are unable to receive commands. It is like that.

     What does a good middleclass American do when there is an interruption in their string of whimseys?.....go to school! I decided to take a french language immersion in Montreal. The idea to abandon ship and immerse myself in order to be rescued seemed appealing. Language school presented itself as a viable  option better than other courses like "Macroscopic Voyages into Historical Lies # 1". Communication Sweetbreads", or "Latter 20th Century Female Ghanian Fiction". All of those might have extricated my down by agitating  my skeptical organ. Give us this day, our daily portion of lite viands and off we will bounce into the world, with sophmoric grins. Language had a different appeal in its simple truth. All enter as privates 1st class,or less, in the army of chit-chats. All are infants wearing their lingual diapers while trying to change the course of their deeply furrowed mental ways. It was purely positive to think I might moisten distant fields.

     With language immersion, paying attention is of more importance than  with other courses. One is not fed fixed ideas by the idea dispensor in front of the class. One cannot remain passive. One must participate, or be at risk of missing the train at any moment of every second. The goal is simple, that is learn to say what I did after shaving in front of fifteen other lingual babies. The subjects discussed are mundane but the degree of difficulty is high. The older brain is stubborn. 
     Another appeal of bilingualism is purely snobbish. To be bi-lingual was to have a special status. I could return home and impress my neighborhood by carrying about copies of L'Etranger, and occaisionally be called on to help the French tourist lost in my town. It didn’t seem to matter that I was too old and the sediments accrued in my mental ditches would offer great resistance to the flow of a foreign language. I thought I might go back in time and be a child again, yet preserving my adult impish side, jettison my depression for immersion in the vagaries of light expression and chit-chat my way back into the world.

     I arrived in Montreal on friday a full three days before courses were to begin to familiarize myself with the town. The next day, saturday the university had arranged a "get acquainted" tour of Quebec city in french. I inscribed and was thrown into a busload of adult advanced or intermediate speakers from all over the world. I was the infant, not mewling, but just trying to breathe in this rarefied air. In spite of my isolation the day went well. After a tour of Quebec center in French,  we were turned loose and I barnacled myself to a man from Uganda who spoke both English and French. It seemed like cheating, speaking English with him for the rest of the day but after the bus ride with the experts, I enjoyed the feeling of comfort. We poked about town however I was already familiar with the city. Since I lived so close in Maine I had visted Quebec many times. Joseph, the man from Uganda, seemed very polite and cautious, but as the day progressed he loosened up and began to recount stories about Uganda during the reign of Idi Amin.There was one story about a skinny young boy in his village. He rarely spoke. He just smiled. He was an eccentric person for he did everything backwards. He walked backwards. He counted backwards,,,, If he wanted to climb a coco palm he would go up backwards smiling. He would swim backwards across the river. In Native American culture there exists a sacred clown that does everything backwards.These rare honored people are called Heyoka. They are living mirrors that reflect society's faults. Their life in the opposite direction teaches us that there is a path before us that travels in an unexpected direction towards a clearer view and that we have the ability to "see" those around us as cherished beings.  Heyoka are valued members of society even if their behavior is difficult to understand but their empathy is sacred and constant, revealed in their backwards approach to life. Joseph told me one day Idi Amin's army entered his village and  executed many people including mirror man.      Joseph and I were the last to reach the bus. I let him enter first, so I was compelled to take the last available seat next to a short attractive lady with thick glasses and close cropped hair spritzed gray at the temples. She looked very practical. She, Pilar,  was a teacher of french at the university level in Toluca, Mexico. Pilar could speak no english and I no spanish and very little French. What could I do with the next two hours but try and communicate or roll on in uncomfortable silence,,, yet aided by her "teacher determination" we stretched out nothing into a little more than nothing,,,probobly the secret to a satisfied life in most parts of the world.  When the bus arrived at the dorm Pilar and I made a promise to meet the next day, Sunday, at St. Joeseph's cathedral, at the 11:00 service in which little boys sing gregorian chant. I needed a friend at this stage in my lingual childhood and I thought she might provide me some company, but we were from different worlds, she fluent and I barely trickling. Pilar never showed up for the mass, but a few days later I sought out her dormitory room and brought her a piece of my artwork. She responded with a "tequila kit". One bottle of Sauza,,,salt,,,lemons. I still have the bottle.  

     I didn't see Pilar too much after that. I went to kindergarden and she went to grad school yet I was able to manage a promise from her that after the course ended we would correspond in french. There are always these bonds formed in language groups that of course are made of paper mache´ and deteriorate after the first or second storm back in the house yet I was a blood hound for correspondents those days I passed in Montreal. I thought this to be a viable manner for extending the lingual "sting" achieved by course taking. Sadly Pilar was not faithful to the promise of correspondence. I am sure in a way I was an irritation , for receiving a letter implies an obligation, and between commuting, work, and the other scimitars in life, who has time for extracurricular obligations, yet this "Advantageous Accident" was just beginning.

     Back in Mexico Pilar was distributing french pen pals to her students one day. A student of hers, La Señorita I will call her, happened to be absent. She was an older student and had family obligations. A couple of days later and a pen pal short she arrived. For la Señorita, Mother Hubbard, the cupboard was unfortunately bare of correspondents. Pilar however had a solutiuon that would benefit both her and her student. She could kill two birds with one swipe of her machete. La Señorita could receive a pen pal and Pilar could sweep her kitchen clean of a pesty cucaracha,, me,,, and all this without any need of penence. Give to La Señorita the desperate gringo and,,, voila,,, her world would contain one less nagging presence.

     At first La Señorita was skeptical of this opportunity for a letter hungary gringo is no substitute for the real Luis Vuitton, in the form of a frenchman equipped the inviolable papers of culture , a real card carrying french pedant. However she relented, because a pen pal was a course requirement. A few days after receiving her charge, I received a large envelope with a letter of introduction. The first thing I noticed was the oversized feminine "e's" in her handwriting. The letter briefly explained her course requirement and included a telephone number in California where she could be reached. At that moment she was visiting an aunt in Sonoma. It was a fateful phonecall for we began a correspondence that lasted almost 6 years, that began as a french lesson between people of different cultures and grew in affection the last year,  when I was carried off to Mexico on the crest of a wave of love and potential. 
     In the fourth year of our photoless correspondence, La Señorita  told me she was going to visit Montreal. She asked if we could meet. We arranged the meeting in front of Le Place des Artes, a plaza of theaters and fountains near the entrance to "Underground Montreal". I arrived first and waited amidst the jets of water and lolling people. Then this short lady with a bag and sunglasses appeared. She asked if I was Pierre. I had taken the french name Pierre for our correspondence. My first impression of her was her confidence, as if she could handle almost any situation. We hugged self conciously, because we were physical strangers but quickly we began talking,,,,,a conversation that lasted until two in the morning. What a seed was planted that evening! I took her to a restaurant, Les Deux Olives and as we sat there just getting reaquainted, there came a moment in that light combed gold by the dim incandescent ambience of so many restaurants, that she appeared softly radiant. 
     After I returned to my home she sent me a poem that her great grandfather had written to her great grandmother when they were courting. It was an elegantly written permission to be more passionate with words. It was after this that our correspondence changed its temperature. I knew we had exchanged something more than our presences that evening in Montreal. This was October, and by April I was in Mexico.